Ladder of Conclusions

One of my strongest feelings right now is: I am scared shitless to get “it.” #Covid19 

This emotion and self-narrative drives a whole lot of the stories in my head lately.

A lot is being said on mainstream and social media about the virus that has brought the world to its knees. And in a world full of memes, click-baits, and fake news, it’s a whole lot of noise and not a lot of clarity. People are ill-informed, confused, and scared.

To quote my mentor, Judith Glaser: “If the quality of our conversation is low, we tend to go up the Ladder of Conclusions which leads us to make stories in our head.”

A lot of us are on this proverbial climb. 

Going up the Ladder of Conclusions, is a chemical certainty for all of us, but we need to understand what is actually going on internally:

• Bio- Reactions: Conversations take place at the chemical level first. Judgments are made almost instantly. About 0.07 -1.0 second is all it takes to form an opinion of someone or a situation.

• Feelings: Next, we label our interaction with “feel good” or “feel bad” emotions, leading to “I can or cannot trust you.”

• Thoughts: Then comes attaching words to these feelings. We often make stuff up to make sense or fill in the holes in our mind. Now we have created a story in our head.

Before I proceed, let us just pause and reflect on these last three statements. (Take a minute. You have time.)

To continue:

• Beliefs: Now once we have our stories made up, we pull in other beliefs we have about the situation or person. We draw from our past experience and we affirm our thoughts in this level.

• Conclusions: When we reach this level of the ladder, we block-out other people and their opinions. We stop seeing or hearing other points-of-view. Judith adds: “Human beings are just rapid judges. We love and are fast to judge. It is our hardwired nature to do so in order for us to protect ourselves.” 

The Ladder of Conclusions happens in a instant. We need to have more meaningful conversations for better connection and understanding.

Think about the people that you have to spend the next 30-60 or so days with until the lockdown is lifted. These people whom we love that we now have to rediscover and embrace in all their imperfection. Do not be on the rush to go up the ladder this time. We all have a lot of time.